Common Ballet

by Mary Ann Honaker

p. 76, Issue 01

 

Attach the word “free” to something

and the damnedest things happen.

So we're all on the windy Common

on blankets and jackets and camp chairs,

 

half of fucking Boston, I swear,

a far better crowd than any Opera house.

The wind chews my ears off,

dramas the cloth backdrop,

 

ices the hell outta of the poor

sonovabitch's fingers who's playing

the clarinet or tuba or trombone.

They've got the stage on a large screen,

 

and good thing, since I couldn't see it

from here, even without that guy

who's standing in the walking path

with a toddler on his shoulders.

 

But then the dancing. The grace

our clumsy bodies reach,

leaving the stage as if weightless,

a meaning that hovers

 

just beyond taste buds, gives

you a faint whiff, makes you salivate.

The music wrenches the bottom dark

and talks to the highlighted clouds

 

at once, the dancers wildly bewitched,

oblivious to the noise and chill.

So I fall far down.  A dog barks.

Children whine that they can't see.

 

Security says Move along now

clear the path.  I'm here and not here,

within my shivering skin, sniffling,

and tucked in Balanchine's blue dream.

 

Sirens scream down a side street

as pulsing strobes highlight each leap

and spin.  It's the best humankind can be.

It's bigger and worse than they planned.